Clinical and Volunteer hours

[scholj]

I have a couple questions with regards to these.

First, what do most med schools expect as far as hours devoted to shadowing doctors and hospital volunteering?

Second, how poorly does it reflect on you if you only started shortly before submitting applications?

I was adament about not pursuing a career in medicine until the end of my sophomore year, so I really only spent the last year trying to make it work. As a result, I've only shadowed a surgeon once (about 10 hours) and I've been volunteering 2 hrs/wk for the past two or three months.

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[DropkickMurphy]

First, what do most med schools expect as far as hours devoted to shadowing doctors and hospital volunteering?

Second, how poorly does it reflect on you if you only started shortly before submitting applications?

To answer the first question, basically they are just looking to see that you have an idea what you're getting yourself into. So long as you can come across as though you actually know what goes into being a physician and how health care really works...that is the main thing. Try to get as much exposure as possible just to hedge your bets.

To answer the second one, now you can't do much about that....so why worry?